PGM NEWS
March 2025 Playtest Night, a New Meetup on the Horizon, Resume Reviews,
an Opportunity to Discuss the Future of Gaming in Philly, and more!
March Playtest Night
Playtest Night at Majux Hub in Old City on Thursday, March 6th had a great turnout and lots of exciting new and improved projects were showcased!
Above: The show-and-tell portion of the evening (Click to expand)
Pat from Nth Circle Studios shared an update now that it’s been a month since the launch of the first paid episode of the studio’s visual novel adventure game, Of the Devil. He gave everyone gathered an overview of the game’s challenges and exciting successes since launch, which was valuable and informative.
Brandon, PGM’s resident arcade cabinet craftsperson, shared a new cabinet idea based on the concept of foosball and pong combined. As always, he ended his presentation with an adorable picture of his dog! (Not pictured here—You have to attend Playtest Night for that kind of quality content!)
Ted and Spencer shared a new game called Interference, which is setting up to be put out by Outpost4. The unique mechanics play with the concepts of quantum interference, and has initially been built in Pico-8.
Tony, the mind behind the recently-released mobile game Scattered Verse, shared his new project, Monster BBQ, where you fight monsters and cook ‘em up! He outlined some of the gameplay for the group and the cute graphics and unique concept has won a lot of the crowd’s hearts already.
Tom Sennett showed off his newest upcoming release, One Million Stars, with which he participated in the most recent Steam Next Fest. Tom outlined some of the numbers from the Fest participation and announce the official release date for the game: March 31st!
Finally, Alex Getz shared his homebrew Legend of Zelda-themed Magic: The Gathering set he created. You can look at his creations here. Alex says you can hit him up if you’re interested in playtesting, as all the cards are available to play with in Tabletop Simulator! Alex is The_Great_Getzby in the PGM Discord server and welcomes folks reaching out about this or other collaborations.
Above: People enjoying the networking and playtest portion of the evening.
After the show-and-tell portion of the night wrapped up, the playtesting began! There were some old favorites, some new, unannounced projects showed off, and lots of really interesting and engaging games to play. Everyone had a great time testing, and giving helpful feedback as well as networking with new connections and catching up with old friends.
As always, a special thanks again to Majux for being willing to host the PGM crew each month!
Upcoming and Newly Released Games from PGM Members
Just Released
Fish Fear Me by Heather Flowers is out now!
“A top-down action roguelite about catching fish, fighting them, selling their bones, and catching more fish. Upgrade your boat and weapons, hunt down sea monster bounties, delve into eldritch mysteries, and try to pay off cosmic debt millennia in the making.”
Don’t forget to wishlist!
The first paid episode of of the Devil by nth Circle Studios has just been released!
“Immerse yourself in neon, smoke, and high-stakes legal gambles as a Defense Attorney with uniquely Killer insights in this diabolically stylish visual novel adventure game.”
You can also checkout the free prologue if you’d like to give the series a try.
Coming Soon
One Million Stars by Tom Sennett Games was featured in our last newsletter, but now its Steam page is officially live!
“Get stars, avoid monsters. The rules are simple, but the goal massive. Pilot 4 different ships, choose stackable upgrades, and grab wild powerups in an endless, dynamically generated roguelite arcade space adventure. Take each run as far as you can, banking progress on the road to ONE MILLION!”
Don’t forget to wishlist!
Special Announcements
Timeworks Awarded Honorable Mention for Best Student Game at the IGF!
Timeworks, by Starworks Studios, was awarded an Honorable Mention at the Independent Games Festival. The IGF takes place during GDC in San Francisco and is the biggest annual celebration of indie talent. Many of the Starworks crew are members of the PGM community, and we love seeing our members shine. Great work to their entire team!
Tell Us Where You Live and How You Like to Work! (Please?)
We’d love to know where you live—I promise we won’t make it weird! We’re running a survey to find out where PGM members are located (just your neighborhood is all we need) so that we can coordinate events that are accessible to as many of our members as possible. Please spare a (literal) minute of your time to take the (very short!) PGM Neighborhood Survey. It’ll help us continue to curate the best experience for our members.
Additionally, as we mentioned in the previous newsletter, PGM is trying to create a coworking program with our partners at Indy Hall, and you can help! And benefit from our partnership! There’s a form we’d be really grateful for you to fill out so we can use the data to make the most of our shared interests. Please take the PGM-Indy Hall Coworking Survey
Upcoming Events
PHL Gaming Taskforce Assembly
March’s IGDA Philly meeting will be a big one! They’re assembling as many of the speakers from this January’s City Council meeting to discuss the hearing, the PHL Gaming report, our proposed legislation to help city game developers, our next steps and more! There is already a big line up of panelists, including PGM’s own Khenan Newton and Tom Sharpe, members of PHL Collective, and more.The Philly IGDA and PGM are closely linked organizations, and this is a really good one for PGM members who are passionate about the gaming scene in Philly. The meeting will be held in-person at Drexel’s ExCITe Center (3401 Market Street, Suite 100), and online in the IGDA Philly Discord Server on Tuesday, March 11th (that’s today!) from 7:00-9:00pm. You can RSVP to attend in person here and register to attend online here.
PGM Coffee Meetup
We’re hosting our very first coffee meetup, and we’d love for you to be there! The meetup will be at Good Karma Cafe at 265 Broad Street (about a ten-minute walk from City Hall) on Saturday, March 29th at 2pm. Please note that Good Karma asks that you spend $5-$10 while we’re there. Please honor this as they’re providing a space for us free of charge!
PGM Game Job Hunting Advice Sessions
Monthly job hunt advice sessions will now be hosted in the PGM Discord server starting this month! The first will be Saturday, March 15th at 11am and will be a resume review! In the future, there will also be sessions dedicated to interview tips, portfolio reviews, and general job hunting advice. This month’s resume review session will be led by RJ Reyes, and you can sign up here.
PGM Planning Session
The PGM Planning Session is a recurring meeting to help organize events for PGM. These events are open to everyone who would like to attend and are hosted in the Discord server the first Monday of each month. The next one is Monday, April 7th at 7pm.
Playtest Night
The next playtest night will be Thursday, April 3rd at 7pm at our usual spot, Majux Hub (230 N 2nd St).
Too Many Games
The Too Many Games conference is from June 27-29th at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, PA. Many PGM members participate in the Indie Game Showcase and/or sell their art or crafts at a vendor booth. Applications to work as a defender (which is a paid role, by the way!) are currently open!